Account-based Marketing

The Benefits of Account-based Marketing

1 year ago

An increasing number of organisations are adopting an account-based marketing approach. In fact, 70% of companies surveyed as part of HubSpot’s 2022 State of Marketing Trends Report reported using ABM as a marketing strategy.

Okay, so it’s popular—but why?

In this article we’ll take a look at seven key benefits of account-based marketing but, before we get to that, we think it’s key to ask if ABM is right for everyone.

Is ABM right for everyone?

Whenever a marketing strategy starts getting a lot of attention it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you need to jump on it. After all, you don’t want to be missing an opportunity.

However, ABM is not right for every type of organisation—so, who is it right for?

First of all, ABM is a B2B marketing strategy. So, if you’re selling to consumers, you don’t need to carry on reading this…

Okay, B2Bs—it should just be us now.

However, ABM is still more relevant to some of you than others. Below is how ABM compares with outbound and inbound marketing:

As you can see, it’s a strategy that’s best suited to longer and more considered sales cycles, particularly when the product or service offerings are higher in value. ABM requires a lot of time investment, so the potential ROI needs to make those efforts worthwhile.

It also needs to be possible to identify target accounts. You’ll need to figure out your ideal customer profile (ICP), as well as the key buyer personas and decision makers you need to get in front of.

7 benefits of ABM

Still think account-based marketing is right for your organisation? Let’s take a look at seven benefits of adopting an ABM marketing approach.

  1. Align your sales and marketing teams
  2. Create more engaging content
  3. Increase your chances of closing bigger deals
  4. Quality not quantity
  5. Upsell and cross-sell your highest value accounts
  6. Involve all key decision makers from the start
  7. Easier to measure results

1. Align your sales and marketing teams

When lead generation is targeted around volume it’s easy for sales and marketing to become adversarial. Sales complains that marketing isn't sending them high quality leads. Marketing’s response is that sales simply isn’t converting the leads they’re sending them.

ABM helps bring sales and marketing together by flipping the marketing funnel on its head.

Instead of focusing on content campaigns and specific channels, ABM shifts the focus towards being audience first. It’s your target accounts—which both teams agree on—that will lead your marketing and sales efforts.

2. Create more engaging content

When we’re targeting broad buyer personas we lose a certain amount of engagement. After all, people love personalised content.

ABM allows you to create marketing messaging that’s personalised to specific industries, companies and even roles within your target accounts.

Think about it.

You’re far more likely to engage with a piece of content—whether that’s an eBook or an outreach email—if it’s tailored to your specific challenges. In fact, 73% of companies that adopted an ABM approach have seen improvements in engagement.

3. Increase your chances of closing bigger deals

Closing deals is great. Closing big deals is even better.

However, it’s hard to close those high value deals with the same marketing messaging and tactics you use for everyone else. You won’t be able to maximise your brand’s relevance among those high value accounts without personalisation of marketing and sales collateral, and the communication and service/product information you share—and low relevance means it’s unlikely to close a big deal.

A survey of ABM marketers found that 91% reported their ABM accounts had bigger deal sizes than non-ABM accounts, while 25% reported deal sizes at least 50% larger.

4. Quality not quantity

You can generate hundreds of MQLs with your marketing, but if those MQLs don’t progress through the sales funnel it’s a pointless endeavour.

According to Gleanster Research, only 25% of MQLs are typically of a high enough quality to immediately advance to sales. What’s more, costs-per-lead are rising across most industries.

ABM prioritises quality over quantity.

Your target accounts list will be carefully curated to ensure every organisation on that list fits your ICP. There’s no need to spend time qualifying bad-fit leads or picking up the phone only to find out your services are far outside of their budget.

5. Upsell and cross-sell your highest value accounts

Account-based marketing makes it easier to land and expand those larger value deals, with companies leveraging ABM for their marketing generating 208% more revenue, increasing retention and facilitating customer expansion, with 84% reporting this.

Treating your customers as what they are—unique people and organisations with specific goals and challenges—rather than one of many, doesn’t just make them feel more supported, but also helps to ensure they get the most value from your products or services.

6. Involve all key decision makers from the start

On average, a company’s purchasing decision process involves more than five different stakeholders. With this in mind, involving multiple decision makers from an early stage is so important.

With an ABM approach, part of the process for prospecting target accounts involves identifying all of the key stakeholders within an organisation, rather than focusing all your efforts on the primary contact who first gets in touch with you directly or engages with marketing material.

7. Easier to measure results

With broad reach, non-ABM marketing it can be difficult to attribute revenue back to your marketing efforts. If you close an inbound lead that got in touch via a contact form you don’t necessarily know if they’ve been touched by previous marketing campaigns.

By contrast, account-based marketing defines your target accounts first. When you close a deal with an organisation on that list, you can directly attribute that revenue back to your ABM efforts.

Ready to find out more about what an account-based marketing approach can do for you? Get in touch with our team today.

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Account-based Marketing
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